The Governess Club: Sara (27 page)

Her heart cracked. He wasn’t here. There wasn’t any sound of horse galloping outside, no doors being thrown open, no panicked man making declarations as he stumbled up the aisle toward her. He wasn’t going to stop her wedding. She had fallen in love with a man who did not care if she married another.

Pain ricocheted through her chest as her heart suffered another crack.

She had pinned her hopes of being saved from this horrible mistake of a marriage on him and he had not come to whisk her away, a knight on a white steed.

Did she need more proof of his lack of affection for her?

Sara turned her gaze back to Charles, now looking at her with a question in his eyes, a small furrow of concern between them. She gave him a wobbly smile, trying to keep the pain growing inside of her from spilling out.

How could she have been so foolish? Nathan had always been nothing but honest with her. He had said that he didn’t want to marry her, had even encouraged her engagement to the man standing in front of her.

He had been her brief taste of adventure and that was it.

But how did their chance meeting on the path factor into everything? He had been so tender and caring, she was certain she hadn’t imagined it at all. The feeling of his hand cupping her face had echoed over her skin later that evening. They hadn’t kissed, but she had wanted to and knew that he had wanted to as well. And she knew, she
knew
that the harsh words he had spoken to her at the assembly had been his way of hiding his own pain, of ensuring that she made what he considered the best choice.

Vicar Warren resumed speaking and a dull hum filled her ears, joining with the pain to make her miserable. It became harder to hide what she was feeling and she could see the awareness growing in her betrothed’s eyes.

Sara stared at Charles. His rich chocolate eyes had once been so mesmerizing to her. She used to feel a slow warmth cover her when he looked at her and now—what? Now those eyes had no effect as she longed for the surge of heat that followed when she saw glacier blue shift into hot springs.

And that future she had imagined? Being a vicar’s wife, always doing the same thing: visiting the poor and infirm, arranging flowers at the church, callers at all hours of the night, absolute silence as he wrote his sermons, day after day of the same thing. Looking at Charles, Sara could easily see her life in five, ten, even twenty years from now and it all looked the same.

Safe. Predictable. Boring.

No adventure.

She saw Charles’ mouth move. She couldn’t hear over the persistent hum in her ears.
The vows
, she thought dully,
he must be repeating the vows. I am next.

When had she last been happy? Cloverfields. It wasn’t hard to determine that. What was shocking, however, was her realization that in the years leading up to Cloverfields she had not been happy at all. People thought she had been, including herself, but that was due to her mother’s training her to project the correct serene image. Even as a governess—people assumed she enjoyed teaching, especially as she was a member of the Governess Club, but it wasn’t true. Dealing with the likes of Henry Copeland every day? She hated it. She had simply never said anything so as to not cause any fuss.

Sara thought again. Cloverfields had been where she was happy. Why was that? Was it Nathan? He most certainly contributed to, but she didn’t think he was the full reason. He had encouraged her to be herself, to take what she wanted and to not apologize for wanting it. That extra serving of dinner? Take it. Want a second scone? Help yourself. Want to swim, sleep in, stay up late, drink spirits? Do it all and don’t feel guilty afterward.

Cloverfields was the one time she had taken what she wanted and what an adventure it had been!

That thought froze her.

She had taken what she wanted and it had been an adventure.

She had taken what she wanted. It had been an adventure.

Sara blinked, realization flooding through her. She had taken what she wanted and the result had been an adventure. Her brother had taken what he wanted and was living a life full of adventures. All of the explorers in Hakluyt’s writings had taken what they had wanted and found adventure.

Adventures don’t simply come to people; people go to find adventures.

She blinked again, things becoming clearer and clearer. She hadn’t been happy at Cloverfields because of Nathan or even because he let her do things she had never done before. She had been happy because she was finally doing something that she had wanted to do.

Sara looked at Charles who was waiting, an expectant look upon his face. Vicar Warren cleared his throat. “If you please, repeat after me.” He said it such a tone that she realized he was repeating himself.

She looked at him and then back at Charles again. A smile covered her face as confidence and assurance settled over her. A cleansing sigh released from her, and Sara reached out and took Charles’ hand, giving it a small squeeze.

“I am sorry Charles, but I cannot marry you.”

A lone gasp broke the silence in the church. Sara looked over the congregation, all wearing stunned expressions. Claire’s eyebrows had shot up to her hairline and Bonnie’s jaw hung open. Jacob and Stephen both looked uncomfortable.

She looked back at Charles, whose face had paled. He opened his mouth to speak, but Sara stopped him. “You are a kind and considerate man, Charles, but I do not love you the way you deserve. We will not make each other happy and our attempts to do so will only serve to cause us misery. It’s not simply that I cannot marry you, but that I actually don’t want to because I am in love with another. And you do not deserve to marry someone who will not give you all of herself.” She slipped off his mother’s ring and handed it back to him. “I wish you all the best in your life.”

Sara turned on her heel and marched down the aisle alone. Smiling into the shocked silence and stepping into the bright sun, she walked to the carriage where Rogers was waiting. “To Windent Hall, please, as fast as you can manage.”

Rogers grasped her hand to help her in. Sara paused with one foot on the step. “May I drive?” she asked, a wide grin on her face.

“Have ye driven before, miss?”

“No.”

“Then if it’s fast ye want, it’s best if I handle the reins.” Rogers returned her grin with a toothy one of his own and she settled in nicely. “Hold on to yer bonnet, miss,” he said, sitting on the perch and setting the carriage into motion, his own hat tucked safely under his bottom.

They picked up speed the moment they took the final turn leaving the town. Obediently, Sara put a hand on her bonnet to help secure it to her head. The carriage tooled along, the shoes tied to the back knocking noisily. She frowned, staring at Roger’s hat flapping the wind, despite its location.

Why was she so worried about a bonnet? She had another. With another glint in her eyes and rebellious smile, Sara brought her hand down and untied her bonnet. Immediately the wind picked it up and whisked it out of her hand. Looking back at its trajectory behind the carriage, she gave a gleeful laugh and tilted her head back toward the sun, feeling the wind start to pull at her coif. She quickly pulled out her new diamond hairpins and placed them in her reticule, loathe to lose those.

When they pulled onto the lane for Windent Hall she sobered. Whatever was she going to say to the man? This was the one who did not come to her wedding to rescue her. Of course, in hindsight, she did not need rescuing after all, but that was not the issue. What could she possibly say to a man who had made it so abundantly clear that he wanted nothing to do with her? Was she simply setting herself up for further heartache and humiliation?

Rogers reined in the horses some distance from the house, slowing first to a trot and then a walk. Sara shifted to the opposite bench and tapped him on the back. “Why are you slowing?”

“There’s a rider up ahead on the lane, miss,” Rogers replied over his shoulder.

Sara peered around him and sure enough, a rider was approaching at a fair gallop. There was hardly enough room for the two conveyances; the man would have to slow down if he wanted to pass safely.

Rogers pulled to a stop. “He hasn’t slowed down yet. This may be hairy.”

Sara bit her lip. There was being adventurous and then there was being deliberately unsafe. She had no wish to injure herself, Rogers or the horses, let alone the approaching man. Who would be traveling at such a frantic pace on a narrow country lane?

“Can you pull over at all?” she asked.

“No miss, not without getting the carriage caught in the bushes.”

“What shall we do?”

“I think he’s finally starting to slow.”

Sara glanced at the rider again, his physique finally becoming familiar and recognizable. She had so rarely seen Nathan on horseback that she had failed to realize it was him. She stood up in the carriage, giving him a better view of herself so he could not fail to recognize her.

He reined to a stop, his horse prancing in a circle at the sudden change in speed. Nathan stared at her. “What has happened?” he demanded. “Has someone assaulted you?”

Sara put a hand to her hair, realizing that her ruined coif combined with her flushed face and excited breathing could be construed as a distress. “I am fine,” she said. “I have come to see you. I need to tell you something.”

He glanced angrily around the carriage. “Where is your husband?”

“Charles is at the church.”

That sentence punched him in the solar plexus. Nathan couldn’t breathe. He was too late. She had married the Goddamn Bloody Vicar. He had spent too much time dithering like an old woman about going to the church and now he had lost his chance.

His heart ached at the sight of her, flushed and heaving, her glorious red curls abounding around her face. She was to be his torture, his penance for the rest of his life, knowing that she would forever be out of reach. He knew she would never consent to being his mistress, not while married to another, just as deeply as he knew he would never ask her. The only question he wanted to ask was moot now, for she had already granted that wish to another.

“What is it?” he bit out, both curious and nauseous at what she might have to say.

“I am going to Scotland.”

That was not what he had expected. “I beg your pardon?”

“I am going to Scotland.”

“He is taking you there on a wedding trip, is he?”

“Who?”

Was she deliberately torturing him? “Your adoring husband.”

“Oh.” She blinked. “
Oh!
” She smiled at him mischievously. “I suppose I forgot about that.”

Nathan grunted at her. “Not married an hour and already forgetting about the man? I shall inform the rakes of London; Taft and its church will become a popular spot.”

She flushed. From embarrassment? Anger? He couldn’t quite tell.

“That was uncalled for.”

Anger then. “Perhaps. But you are the one who forgot about your husband.”

A deeper red infused her face. “But that is where you are wrong, for I have no husband to forget.”

Nathan stilled, the animal under him reacting the same way as though it had just as much personal stake in her statement as he did. “What?”

She smiled, one so brilliant it made his stomach roll over and clench with desire. “I left him. At the altar. Me, I left him.”

A hysterical giggle escaped her and Sara clapped her hand over her mouth.
Oh dear heavens, what have I done?
The reality of everything was sinking in, causing panic to rise up in her. She had left a good man at the altar, embarrassed him in front of his entire congregation. And for what? For an adventure?

No. She had done it for herself. The truth of that settled her panic. Just as Charles deserved more than what she could have given him, she deserved more as well. She deserved more than Charles, more than Nathan if he rejected her once more. But she had to try one last time.

Nathan stared at her, not fully comprehending what was happening. She was not married? She was still free? “You left him?” he echoed stupidly.

Sara nodded. “At the altar. I couldn’t marry him. Not when I wanted to go to Scotland.”

“Yet you are here at Windent Hall. Or nearly.”

She smiled at him again, that brilliant one he had never seen on her before now. “Yes I am.”

Things were starting to fall into place in his mind and Nathan felt his hands curl with the tension building inside of him. “I see. You are not done with your adventuring and you wish for me to provide you with more.” It was lowering to realize just how much he did not mean to the woman he had fallen in love with. He had been wrong earlier about his penance; it wasn’t knowing that she would never be his but that she did not want him, not the way he wanted her.

She cocked her head and regarded him in a blunt, assessing manner that had lust shafting down his spine and settling in his groin. Rather uncomfortable that, while on a saddle.

“No,” she finally said. “I don’t think you understand. I am going to Scotland with or without you. I think it would be more entertaining should you accompany me, but I am going.”

He raised a mocking brow. “Are you? Well, I wish you good luck.” He doffed his hat at her and wheeled the horse around to return to Windent Hall. There was whiskey waiting for him.

Her voice stopped him. “You see, I have come to a realization. I was wrong. For all those years, I was wrong. I wanted adventure, but I was waiting for it to come to me. It was just today, a few minutes ago at the church in fact, that I realized that true adventurers don’t wait around for things to happen, but rather make things happen around them. So I am going to start making things happen. And the second thing I am going to make happen is going to Scotland. Will you accompany me?”

He narrowed his eyes on her and gave her the look that had become second nature to him in the last few months, one that made people cringe and want to slink away. Except her. Foolish woman could see right through him, he felt.

One side of Nathan’s mouth curled back into a sneer. “Are you proposing that we travel together, unmarried?”